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Download the 2006 Action and Assessment Plan (pdf)
The Action and Assessment Plan was originally developed as the university prepared for its decennial accreditation with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, in 1998. It was in that context that the five categories of the aspiration emerged and became the framework for the development of the goals and measures contained in the plan.
Since that time, the planning process has continued to evolve and individual unit plans have been developed in both academic and administrative areas. These unit plans are designed to articulate ways in which each unit will support the goals of the Action and Assessment Plan, as well as the unique operational goals that will enhance each unit’s effectiveness.
As the plan has matured, the ambition of the university to be ranked among the top 100 universities in the nation has added focus to the planning agenda and enabled the institution to crystallize its thinking about the priorities that must be set to achieve our aspirations. We are driven by a unique window of opportunity during which time the population demographics will yield a steady increase in students seeking to enter postsecondary education, through 2008.
Accordingly, it is imperative that Northeastern be repositioned competitively among national universities while this window remains open, before the population demographics begin a downward slope. To accomplish this, our primary focus is set on four critical areas that affect the way in which Northeastern is compared to other national universities:
• Student quality and selectivity
• Student success as measured by retention and graduation rates
• Faculty and financial resources
• Academic reputation and research
These strategic priorities are coupled with a set of values that embody the heart and soul of Northeastern University. While the university community works toward accomplishing its competitive goal of top-100 status, it must not sacrifice its historic commitments to cooperative education and the development of a broader practice-oriented approach to education; to providing access and support to underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students; and to an urban focus that is not only manifested in Boston, but serves as a national model for other colleges and universities.
Our strategic priorities and historic values, therefore, drive the programmatic initiatives contained in the Action and Assessment Plan and are represented in the aspiration of Northeastern University to be a national research university that is student-centered, practice-oriented and urban.
In order to measure our progress during the implementation of this plan, the university has selected a set of benchmark institutions that in general represent the type of university we aspire to become. There is no perfect comparator institution for Northeastern, especially given the defining characteristics of cooperative education.
However, many of the key indicators we need to track can be meaningfully compared to a standard set of institutions. Accordingly, the various goals and measures in the plan have been set with an understanding of the competitive environment in which the university operates.